The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Cheonha Jeil Sajae (20)
They have come crashing in!
Tang Clan was a fairly large martial family, but from the standpoint of the Nine Sects and One Clan, it was little more than a small gathering.
For that reason, the clan lacked the means to divide its members the way Shaolin or Wudang did, into scholar monks and warrior monks, or into Taoists who devoted themselves to the Immortal Path and Taoists who devoted themselves to martial study.
Harmony without Sameness!
Every member of the family trains in martial arts, yet each also throws themselves into their assigned duties!
Holding aloft the motto handed down from generations past and pouring every effort into it, Tang Clan rose to become one of the Seven Great Martial Clans, the representatives of the Secular Sects. Yet the clan’s leadership was still not satisfied.
“Today we’re climbing Kunji Mountain.”
Jin Muok, who had once again bloomed into Hwadamhoe with the morning dew, slapped the dust from his backside and muttered.
Kunji Mountain, which literally means “Brothers’ Mountain,” refers to a peak formed by two smaller summits. Of course, the name was modeled after Siguniang Mountain, the famous four-peaked mountain in the Qiang lands near Chengdu.
“W-we’re going up Kunji? That’s pretty steep, you know.”
“It’ll be rough.”
The Uipa women whispered their worries, but Jin Muok remained composed. No, he was resolute.
“What are you worried about?”
“Trust your own stamina, that’s all.”
“Trust your own stamina, that’s all.”
Wink.
Jin Muok playfully closed and opened his right eye.
“Alright!”
As if she’d been waiting for it, Myomyo shot her right hand into the air. She had joined the runs from the very first day, so after two weeks she had grown quite accustomed to them.
“Climbing Kunji is nothing, we’ll just blow right past it!”
Myomyo set her fighting spirit ablaze at Jin Muok’s words. She was truly a woman to be grateful for.
“R-really?”
Drawn in by the positive energy Myomyo radiated, the hesitant Uipa women gathered their courage one by one.
“What’s the worst that could happen? We could die?”
As is well known, Tang Clan operates under the motto of Harmony without Sameness, in which every member of the family trains wholeheartedly in martial arts while faithfully carrying out their own designated roles.
Thus, those with outstanding martial talent devote themselves exclusively to martial study, those with moderate talent pursue both martial arts and poisons, and those with the least aptitude for martial arts combine them with medicine.
In other words, the Uipa women, Myomyo among them, were people who had earned recognition neither in martial arts nor in medicine.
“Thanks to the young master pulling us along, all of our stamina has climbed up a notch.”
Myomyo clapped her hands briskly and stepped forward. Under her half-serious, half-stirring encouragement, the Uipa women drew resolve from the very bottom of their hearts.
“Shall we go, then?”
Jin Muok stamped his foot forcefully.
Pak!
Running into the dawn breeze brings a refreshment beyond words. And all the more so when you’re running with good people.
As Jin Muok had said, the Jianghu was not always consumed by the Divine Demon Great War, and in the Jianghu nothing is as vital as basic physical stamina, and the only way to acquire it is through steady perseverance.
“So this is how strong I’ve become!”
As they returned to Tang Clan, one of the Uipa women marveled at herself, and the others burst into giggles.
“When did we build up this kind of strength?”
When? Why, it was the result of running steadily around the garden for two weeks.
“Since the head of the family has just set out on a poison-gathering trip with the Seven Great Fu, fierce as tigers, let’s run again once the sun goes down.”
“Sounds good to me!”
The Uipa women giggled among themselves. But as they stepped into the garden where the infirmary stood, they were forced to halt in their tracks with a start.
Waiting for them there was a figure whom everyone in Tang Clan feared.
“E-Second Elder!”
“Elder, what brings you out at this hour?!”
The one who greeted the Uipa women at the garden entrance was Dang Ik, Chief of the Wonnorowon of Tang Clan.
“Where have you been roaming at the crack of dawn?”
Dang Ik reprimanded the Uipa women in a harsh, grating voice. But the Uipa women felt wronged.
“W-we were just exercising…”
“We only ran during our off-duty shift…”
“Since when do you talk back?”
Bang!
When he stamped his foot, the ground did not crack open, but the force of his anger came through all the same, and the Uipa women’s necks shrank back like a turtle’s.
“The infirmary is on alert three hundred sixty-five days a year, twelve shichen a day! It means no one knows when, where, or what kind of patient will come crashing in! And yet you have the leisure to go on about off-duty shifts!”
Scolding the Uipa women, Dang Ik stepped forward. Dang Cheon, the sky of Tang Clan and its eternal Old Clan Head, had lost his wits to dementia, so it was only natural that his younger brother Dang Ik was treated as the eldest.
But ordering off-duty Uipa women to remain on standby without end was surely an excessive measure.
Smirk.
Behind Dang Ik, someone let out a dry sneer.
As is well known, Dang Jong-ak was Dang Ik’s grandson and a man who had earned considerable trust among the young people of Tang Clan. Even now he stood behind Dang Ik, saying nothing of his own opinion, merely grinning.
It hardly needs explaining how Dang Jong-ak appeared to the Uipa women as he struggled to hold back his mockery.
“What brings Brother Jong-su here?”
Myomyo asked in a sharp voice, but Dang Jong-ak said nothing in reply. He simply licked over her curvy figure with his eyes.
A sight as disgusting as it gets.
The Wonnorowon Hall physicians’ faces twisted with insult and disgust, but Dang Ik did not care.
They were nothing more than disposable tools, after all.
And so Dang Ik drove a nail straight into the Uipa women’s hearts.
“Who do you think you are, you Samgo Yukpa, forgetting your place and running about like this? How shameful.”
Samgo Yukpa is a term used to disparagingly refer to women who hold nine kinds of unseemly occupations.
Among these, the Samgo refer to women tied to religion, such as the
, the
, and the
.
And the Yukpa are the
, the
, the
, the
, the
, and the Uipa or Onpa
.
Strictly speaking, the women who worked in medicine within the Tang Clan were also Uipa. Still, when the very man in charge of the clan’s Wonnorowon hurled the slur Samgo Yukpa at them directly, the Uipa bit their lips.
They had toiled day and night for the family, and this was the thanks they got.
But they could not protest openly. Dang Ik was the clan’s de facto head, and raising a hand against him was out of the question.
Humiliated and wronged, the Uipa bit down on their lips.
“What?”
“What’s going on?”
Young physicians came pouring out of the infirmary. Their eyes swept over the not-quite-standoff between Dang Ik and the Uipa, and they tossed out remarks one after another.
“Figures. What’s the point of the Uipa even exercising?”
“Our clan’s so generous, giving them time set aside for training.”
“You can’t make a watermelon out of a gourd just by drawing lines on it, can you?”
A sneer meaning: can a gourd be made into a watermelon by scoring stripes on it? In other words, can the Uipa, however hard they train, ever become true martial artists?
Not everyone joined in. The more sensible young men held their tongues, but the physicians who had been leaving most of the work to the Uipa were the ones running their mouths.
Once the younger physicians joined in, the Uipa had no choice but to shrink back.
“Get back to the infirmary this instant. And from now on, stop running around for no reason.”
Dang Ik flicked the back of his hand outward, as if shooing a pesky fly away from the Uipa.
As the cowed Uipa turned to leave, Dang Ik drove in the final wedge.
“From now on, no idle chatter during break time either. Why, you useless—”
“It isn’t idle chatter. It’s part of our rest.”
A woman stepped forward, boldly.
It was Myomyo.
“Whether we spend our break gossiping or dozing against a wall, isn’t the way we rest up to us?”
At her retort, Dang Ik narrowed his round eyes.
How dare an Uipa talk back to me!
Just as the furious man opened his mouth, another Uipa spoke up.
“Nowhere in the family rules does it say how we’re supposed to rest.”
She was Song Hwa, an Uipa who was usually meek but spoke up firmly whenever she judged something to be wrong.
The courage of the two of them.
Standing up to Dang Ik, the very pillar of authority, Myomyo and Song Hwa’s resolve set the Uipa stirring.
Their words were right, after all. Even in the imperial palace, famous for its strict rules, no one cared how the palace maids spent their rest. For a martial family like the Tang Clan to meddle in even this was utterly absurd.
“Wh-what insolence!”
Dang Ik, who had been trembling at the shoulders, turned toward the young physicians who were whispering among themselves.
“Either way, you lot know not the first thing about medicine, so you’d better stick right beside those two and save some lives!”
The young physicians nodded along, their expressions dripping with arrogance.
Then a blunt remark cut across the hall.
“The young ladies were better, I thought.”
Every gaze in the room swung toward Jin Muok.
“Of course, those senior gentlemen were admirable too, but the young ladies treated me a little better.”
“So you’re Muok’s youngest disciple?”
Dang Ik’s frosty expression melted away, leaving behind a face brimming with indulgence.
“Oh, come here, come here.”
Beaming, Dang Ik gathered him up like a mother bird does her chick, and Jin Muok forced an awkward smile.
‘I can’t get used to this.’
Cradled in Dang Ik’s arms, Jin Muok scrunched up his face.
“I heard my nephew frightened you, didn’t I? Are you hurt anywhere? Are you uncomfortable at all?”
He doted on Jin Muok so thoroughly that one might wonder if he treated his own grandson this way, and he even crouched down to bring himself eye level with the boy.
In truth, Dang Ik had never been particularly close with Jin Muok. Thirteen years ago, when Jin Muok had been constantly visiting Tang Clan to keep Dang Cheon company over drinks, Dang Ik had treated him with cool indifference.
Then one day, an incident drew Dang Ik and Jin Muok together at a rapid pace. No, it was more that they had no choice but to grow close.
But this was a secret known to only a handful of people.
Chatting idly, Dang Ik held Jin Muok in a proxy embrace and stroked his cheek.
“I suppose the Infirmary children have been good to you, but physicians and the Infirmary are fundamentally distinct. So…”
At that moment, Jin Muok threw out a provocative question.
“Those gentlemen aren’t from the Imperial Medical Academy either, are they?”
To be recognized as a physician by the state, one must either hold the special status of a Se-ui, a hereditary physician, or enroll in the Imperial Medical Academy, undergo training, and pass the examinations.
A Se-ui refers to a son of a family that has practiced medicine for generations, inheriting the family trade; such families are otherwise known as medical households.
In short, it means hereditary physicians.
And the Imperial Medical Academy is a specialized medical school that admits physician candidates selected from every corner of the Central Plain.
Those who enter the academy pass a series of examinations overseen by the Chamberlain-level officials and are then formally recognized as physicians.
“And the Tang Clan isn’t a medical household recognized by the state, either.”
“Gwan-mu Bul-ga-chim, then.”
Dang Jong-ak, who had kept his mouth shut until now, stepped forward with a crooked smile.
“As you say, our Tang Clan is no medical household. Which emperor would recognize a martial family as a Se-ui? That would amount to the imperial court tolerating the existence of the martial world, wouldn’t it?”
The Jianghu exists, yet it is a land that does not exist. It holds the power to sway the fate of the nation itself, but once that power is acknowledged, the imperial house and the martial world are bound to collide.
Two tigers cannot share a single mountain.
And so the Jianghu and the imperial court lived ignoring each other, like a cow and a chicken that pay no mind to one another.
“That is why the physicians of our clan neither enroll in the Imperial Medical Academy nor sit for the examinations the state administers.”
Dang Jong-ak’s objection carried considerable sense, and Dang Ik nodded with evident satisfaction.
Just then, someone came rushing breathlessly into the MuReung Hwawon.
“E-Elder Ik!”
“What is it?”
Dang Ik’s face showed displeasure, but the guard’s desperation swallowed up his irritation.
“Patients have come pouring in!”
“Why are you telling me this here? Quickly, get the physicians to— Wait. Pouring in? What do you mean by that?”
The guard raised his head, flustered.
“Th-there are no fewer than seventy-seven patients!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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